


Losing My Religion

by Measured



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Angst, Community: fic_promptly, Community: hc_bingo, F/F, Loss of Faith, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much she prays, she doesn't get an answer. She doesn't believe anymore, but she can't stop praying and she can't stop hoping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing My Religion

**Author's Note:**

> HC_Bingo: Fall from grace. Kyoko/Sayaka, salvation. Contains religious imagery and references. Note that in supplemental material, it's revealed that Mami and Kyoko used to be close. However, I decided to stick to anime canon to streamline things.

Every day and every night her fingers could mark the path of beads, the whisper of a prayer on her lips. Father taught of a God who loved his children, who protected them even as they starved. Even as he set fire to the church and his family, he never stopped believing.

Sometimes she tried to pray, but there was nothing but quiet. No still, small voice inside her to comfort. If that part had ever been there, it was carved out, now. No sound of her father talking, no words of hope. If God existed, why would suffering exist? Why did she starve? Why would no one listen to her father, and why would he burn them?

She still had no answer.

In those days after the fallout, she prayed and prayed to wake up or die or anything, just not to be alone. She screamed herself hoarse, ran her fingers through the ashes until they burned and healed over and over. It was only when she began walking away, numbed to the core that the words came to her mind. The only words which kept her breathing:

 _There are no such thing as heroes._.

*

Looking out, all she saw were people left behind. If God said to be kind, she would be selfish. She was going to take out as many witches as she could before she died, going to ride this crest of flames for as long as she could. Hope, faith and charity left you hungry, and she was never going to go hungry again. Father had taught to be unselfish and to serve those around you, just as he'd unselfishly killed his family and given them as burnt offerings to the Lord. She'd fight only for herself. No god above was looking out on her, nobody had her back. Better to rule than serve.

In the end, guardian angels were about as real as the fairy tales she used to love.

 

*

Sayaka hit her life like a thunderstorm, gale force winds and swords drawn. She was too naive, fueled on justice and hope and the belief in the world. Kyoko knew better; she'd seen the worst life had to offer.

Kyoko thought this one was just another naive magical girl lined up for slaughter, but her skin still tingled after a taste of Sayaka's steel. She hadn't had a challenge like that in quite a while. For the first time in a very long time, Kyoko felt alive.

The words Sayaka said, so trite, like fairy tale heroes stayed with her.

*

Like magnets, she couldn't keep away. She dragged Sayaka out, dragged her into orbit.

No words sufficed for the shape of what they were.

*

She looked to Sayaka. Foolish and naive, like some fairytale heroine come to life. _Heroes don't exist, you idiot._ In the stained glass ruins, she looked fierce, an avenging angel. Angels fell due to loving human women, a long forgotten line she'd memorized.

She'd memorized many lines of scripture back in the day, and not a single one had saved her.

Kyoko took a bite of the apple and tossed another to Sayaka. Sayaka's eyes narrowed in distrust. 

"It's not poisoned," Kyoko said dismissively.

She'd never understood the book of Genesis before. Mankind fell because Adam didn't want to be alone. For once, Kyoko could sympathize; she'd sell herself little by little just to have a fragment of hope, just so she wouldn't be the last one standing any more. 

But Sayaka threw the apple and all those promises away.

*

Kyoko could only watch her family die, and Sayaka was no different. It didn't matter the connections between them, ones that defied explanation. Not love, not friendship, not hate. Something more, a connection of all of them. 

Sayaka was a long walk backwards, an Ophelia drowning that she couldn't reach beneath the waves. The bitterness rose up in her _I told you, I told you that you were naive. I told you we couldn't be saved_

And then: _I still believed in you._

She was born in flames and she would die in them. Wrapped up in the stupid beliefs that got her here in the first place. _I just can't quit you, can I?_

_It sucks to be alone._

Even as she started to burn away, she found herself repeating the prayers, the sound of Ave Maria a distant echo in her mind. Old habits die hard—or was it just that Sayaka had made her believe in spite of it all? Even if God left her to starve and took her family He also gave her Sayaka.

There wasn't a place for her in heaven anymore, but maybe they could carve out a place for each other in the depths of the ocean.


End file.
